Am J Psychiatry 1977; 134:1395-1399
Copyright © 1977 by American Psychiatric Association
Restructuring rehabilitation for women: programs for the female drug addict
KM Doyle, MA Quinones, G Tracy, D Young and J Hughes
Two residential therapeutic communities for female addicts--one
coeducational and the other all female--encountered serious problems
shortly after their formation. The authors found that the male and female
staff of the coeducational program had quite different perceptions of the
purposes and characteristics of the women's part of the program. In both
programs the female staff held such strongly ambivalent feeling toward
their roles as women and authority figures that they had difficulty
functioning effectively. The authors suggest the need for research that
will identify the female addict's special needs, and a restructuring of
programs to meet those needs. Further, training programs for female staff
must enable them to distinguish between their own ideals and their clients'
needs.
